Notes to Myself after Two Days in Bed

Don’t wait until you’re sick to spend two days in bed again.
This is because there are so many wonderful things to do in bed if you’re actually feeling good— reading, napping, loving, playing bears with your daughter under the covers, watching Mad Men, talking on the phone, eating popcorn or pasta.
Even if you weren’t able to do many of these things in the last two days, you got a sense of what it is to slow down and cancel all your ‘to do’s’. This is a fascinating feeling.
Enjoy that fascinating feeling. Learn from it.
It’s called No Efforting. It’s called Trust.
Let’s see: Listen to your body. You’ve been hacking for weeks and you didn’t slow down. You’re still weak. Rejoin the pace of things with care.
Note how you feel now. There’s a huge trust about the rhythm of things unfolding with grace. And there’s a beautiful silence in and around you.
Did you notice that when you did get out of bed, you just did little tasks that called to you, that felt good, that were diverse and that you really wanted to do in that moment?
Did you notice how you felt after you insisted you sit in the sun for 10 minutes and just soak in the heat? Did you notice you were restless but you did it anyway? It’s called practicing stillness. Did you notice how good it was for you and that your face went from a strange gray color to a color a little closer to a true you.
Do you notice how nice it is to begin Spring quietly, with attention, with inner delight, with a wisdom about pace and self-care?
Finally, after two days in bed, did you note that it’s time to get some new pillows and that the white bed spread you put on after you sweat through the blue actually looks really light and nice and refreshing. It does.
And finally finally, did you feel grateful for the love and crazy amounts of support coming your way from your community of pals and family who said, “Sleep. Listen to your body. Take care of yourself. Don’t worry about a thing.You are loved.”